Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
Speaker 1: global economy to you. We have two takes on aging
Speaker 1: this week from opposite sides of the world. First, from Shanghai,
Speaker 1: we hear how the Chinese Communist Party is turning to
Speaker 1: an old idea time banking, to help them deal with
Speaker 1: the looming challenge of a fast aging population. Then from
Speaker 1: the US, a piece on student debt, which could surprise
Speaker 1: you sky. Higher university fees and the heavy burden of
Speaker 1: student debt have been big issues on the campaign trail
Speaker 1: in recent U S elections. But if I asked you
Speaker 1: to conjure up a mental image of the people saddled
Speaker 1: with all this debt, it probably wouldn't be a seventy
Speaker 1: or eighty something retiree living in Florida. It turns out
Speaker 1: the burden of student debt is growing fastest among the
Speaker 1: over sixties. In a few minutes, we'll hear from some
Speaker 1: of the people struggling with this and learn how government
Speaker 1: programs seem to be making it worse. We'll also here
Speaker 1: why menu prices are quietly soaring but many of your
Speaker 1: favorite restaurants. But first let's head to Shanghai for that
Speaker 1: report from Bloomberg Economy reporter Charlie Juma. What you heard
Speaker 1: is parking music for some elderly folks in Shanghai. It's
Speaker 1: five pm on a Monday. About a dozen elderly men
Speaker 1: and women were already gathering at the leafy downtown street
Speaker 1: side park in Shanghai to get ready for one of
Speaker 1: their routines, dancing in the squares or guangchang wu in Chinese.
Speaker 1: It's a familiar side in cities across this vast nation,
Speaker 1: which is rapidly aging. The latest census data show the
Speaker 1: country has two sixty million residents aged sixty and above,
Speaker 1: more than eight percent of its population. By twenty fifty,
Speaker 1: it will be one in three. To diffuse this demographic
Speaker 1: time bomb, the Chinese Communist Party is turning into a
Speaker 1: foreign invention. Time banking, the brain child of Japanese lady
Speaker 1: Taruku Missushima in the nineties seventies. Time banking involves people
Speaker 1: providing social services to others in exchange for time credit
Speaker 1: that the participant can use to access similar services later
Speaker 1: in life. On a recent Wednesday morning, I went to
Speaker 1: see a time bank for myself at an elderly care
Speaker 1: home in Shanghai's Changning district. A handful of Time Bank volunteers,
Speaker 1: mostly retirees in the sixties or seventies, are busy working,
Speaker 1: each wearing badges bearing the logos of the Time Bank
Speaker 1: the workforce. One was teaching an elderly neighbor how to
Speaker 1: use a stationary bike in a small gym another word
Speaker 1: advertising bathroom and kitchen accessories designed for seniors. For the work,
Speaker 1: the volunteers will get paid not in money, but in time.
Speaker 1: They can use their accrue hours to access services from
Speaker 1: other members of the bank. One I met was Fundundi.
Speaker 1: The seventy six year old former travel services manager, is
Speaker 1: one of many so called empty nest seniors. Her husband
Speaker 1: passed away several years ago, and her only child is
Speaker 1: married and lives in another part of the city. She
Speaker 1: started working for the Channing Time Bank as a part
Speaker 1: time receptionist at the senior care house two years ago.
Speaker 1: More recently, she ventured into something slightly more challenging, teaching
Speaker 1: her fellow seniors how to download pictures on Wi Chat,
Speaker 1: the Chinese super app used for everything from instant messaging
Speaker 1: to payment. Asked why she came here to do this,
Speaker 1: she said she wanted to save time dollars for her future.
Speaker 1: What's probably more important, she said, the job is the
Speaker 1: past time for her either. It feels kind of lonely
Speaker 1: at home. It's staying by myself for too long. I'm
Speaker 1: afraid i will get in mania. I'm not really happy
Speaker 1: to hand around with other seniors. Fun has accumulated eight
Speaker 1: time dollars so far, a sum that would have been
Speaker 1: much higher if not for the pandemic last year. She
Speaker 1: told me she has no plan to spend it now,
Speaker 1: and she's keen to save more for future. China launch
Speaker 1: a pilot time banking program in some cities a few
Speaker 1: years ago. The trial has since spread to about a
Speaker 1: dozen metropolisis from Beijing to Guangzhou and the financial hub
Speaker 1: of Shanghai. Shanghai is planning to extend the trial to
Speaker 1: the entire city from just a few districts. The reason
Speaker 1: to broadened experiment is straightforward, a rapidly aging population, rising
Speaker 1: cost of senior care, and shortage of care facilities. Nin Teger,
Speaker 1: head of China's National Bureau of Statistics, expressed concerns about
Speaker 1: China's demographic train last month when he announced China's latest
Speaker 1: census result at the press briefing don't go and do.
Speaker 1: The aging of the population is further deepening. China is
Speaker 1: facing the pressure of long term sustainable development of its population.
Speaker 1: The data showed the number of Chinese people aged sixty
Speaker 1: and above has reason by forty since two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: while China's births have fallen to their lowest in almost
Speaker 1: six decades, putting the country's population on course to peak
Speaker 1: within the next five years. The demographic clifvage, of course,
Speaker 1: is a problem of government's ownmaking. After decades of imposing
Speaker 1: a heavy handed one China policy, China has announced its
Speaker 1: planning to raise the retire manage allow all couples to
Speaker 1: have not two, but three children. But most urgent is
Speaker 1: strengthening the care for elderly citizens to be sure. Challenges
Speaker 1: facing time banking and China bound from a lack of
Speaker 1: public understanding of the concept to maintaining the quality of
Speaker 1: services and securely storing time dollars. Yet some industry experts
Speaker 1: are optimistic, citing the government's commitment and the widespread use
Speaker 1: of mobile phones. Among the optimists, it's Siging who runs
Speaker 1: the time back in the central Chinese city of Wuhan
Speaker 1: in the comers in China has its own characteristics. It
Speaker 1: usually has grand plans for a lot of things with
Speaker 1: top down designs. Under such a leadership, I believe different
Speaker 1: places will come up with different ways to promote time banking.
Speaker 1: The reason for Shanghai to push forward time banking is compelling.
Speaker 1: The city has almost six million residents who are sixt
Speaker 1: and above, or nearly a quarter of its total population,
Speaker 1: far above China's national average and about the same as
Speaker 1: some developed countries. Set Up in two thousand nine, the
Speaker 1: Chinese Time Bank has signed up more than two thousand members.
Speaker 1: They have deposited over two thousand furs into the bank,
Speaker 1: translating into some fifty five R and B or eighty
Speaker 1: dollars in the value of senior care services based on
Speaker 1: Shanghai's minimum wage. Only a fraction of the time deposits
Speaker 1: has been used, as most members are fifty to seventy
Speaker 1: euro retirees who have pension income but worry about rising
Speaker 1: costs of senior care. In a recent interview, Good Zoo,
Speaker 1: an official of the Shanghai Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, told
Speaker 1: us that unlike overseas time banks whose members are from
Speaker 1: various age groups. Shanghai is mainly pushing for the model
Speaker 1: of so called young old serving the elder in light
Speaker 1: of the city's demographic structure. Due to the age of
Speaker 1: its members, the scope of the services the Chinese time
Speaker 1: bank provide is limited to helping with essentials such as
Speaker 1: paying utility bills and doing the grocery shopping. Time banking
Speaker 1: is a concept from abroad. During the process of localization.
Speaker 1: We have to twicket according to the needs of elderly
Speaker 1: care for a big city like Shanghai. Wild time banking
Speaker 1: never really took off with a strong arm of the
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist Party behind it. China just maybe the country
Speaker 1: where it does this is Charlie Drew for Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: in Shanghai. M h, well, you heard there about the
Speaker 1: Chinese government encouraging able to say for their retirement with
Speaker 1: their time as well as their money. But in the US,
Speaker 1: older Americans are being actively encouraged to run up debts
Speaker 1: which could make their old age considerably worse. In the
Speaker 1: last three years, student debt student debt among Americans over
Speaker 1: sixty two rose by nearly eight In a minute, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to Bloomberg Senior editor Alex Tanzi about what's driving
Speaker 1: this problem. But first I wanted to play you this
Speaker 1: introduction by Bloomberg Quicktake producer Madison Paglia. I should say
Speaker 1: she's a video producer. Quick take producers videos. And if
Speaker 1: you want to put faces to the voices you're about
Speaker 1: to hear, you can go online and search for older
Speaker 1: Americans frontline student debt crisis, or just embrace the magic
Speaker 1: of radio and produce the pictures for yourself. What turned
Speaker 1: out to be about thirty tho dollars student loan is
Speaker 1: now seventy never I'll die before I'll never be able
Speaker 1: to pay that off. It's kind of like a death
Speaker 1: sentence from me. I'm in a life sentence, I should
Speaker 1: say to pay those student debts. Student loan debt in
Speaker 1: the US is now at one point seven trillion, and
Speaker 1: it's growing fastest among older Americans. There are now about
Speaker 1: eight point seven million Americans over the age of fifty
Speaker 1: who are still paying off college loans and who have
Speaker 1: seen their debts increase by about half since And this
Speaker 1: is my son. He graduated in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: from Bridgewater College with a degree in biology. I didn't
Speaker 1: want him to be stuck with having the debt that
Speaker 1: a lot of kids have when they get out of college.
Speaker 1: So I assumed that loan seventy seven year old Frank
Speaker 1: Sizer Jr. Is a retired prison warden living in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: By the time he is ninety six years old, he
Speaker 1: will finally be finished paying off his student loans. The
Speaker 1: parent plus loan that I took out was through the
Speaker 1: Department of Education, and of course they then transferred everything
Speaker 1: over the navyant. But I think I started in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. I'm still paying it and according to Navy,
Speaker 1: and I'll be done in two thousand and forty. My
Speaker 1: former job was ahead of the Atlanta City Jail, and
Speaker 1: before that, I was the warden of three different federal prisons,
Speaker 1: and of course I ran the prison system in Maryland.
Speaker 1: My main source of income, of course, is my retirement
Speaker 1: income and of course social Security. I sort of assumed that,
Speaker 1: like most loans, you pay it off in a reasonable
Speaker 1: amount of time, and I expected that I would have
Speaker 1: it paid off before I retired. But for a period
Speaker 1: of time while he was in school, I was just
Speaker 1: paying interest rate on the loan. Right now, a balance
Speaker 1: of about fifty two dollars. God knows what the original
Speaker 1: amount was interest rate compounding, and it just continued to grow.
Speaker 1: It came as quite a shock to me to find
Speaker 1: out that I'm going to be label with this, probably
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. As you get older
Speaker 1: and you don't have the income that you did when
Speaker 1: you were working, it has a big effect to take
Speaker 1: about five dred a month from y'all retirement income to
Speaker 1: pay a student loan. These are the type of buses
Speaker 1: that we drove. Alma Pett used to be a school
Speaker 1: bus driver in Stockton, California, but back to back traffic
Speaker 1: accidents led to debilitating medical issues and ultimately put her
Speaker 1: out of a job. My main objective after that was
Speaker 1: to go back to school. I was in the middle
Speaker 1: of a divorce and was a single parent. I took
Speaker 1: out student loans too, not only to cover my books
Speaker 1: and the classes, but to help assist in my daily bills.
Speaker 1: Almost medical issues have caused her to be in and
Speaker 1: out of work over the years, and she is currently
Speaker 1: collecting state disability. At this age, I can't be the
Speaker 1: same worker that I was before that. I just don't
Speaker 1: see a way out. I've been trying to pay it.
Speaker 1: I've had medical problems, lots of jobs, debts in the
Speaker 1: family where I had to stop work, my husband got
Speaker 1: laid off, and in between times I couldn't pay the payments,
Speaker 1: so I had to ask for forbearance. The interests accrued.
Speaker 1: Like big time borrowers who defer all loans can face
Speaker 1: severe consequences such as capitalized interest, which can cause the
Speaker 1: original loan balance to skyrocket. Alma didn't complete her b A,
Speaker 1: but took enough units to earn a certificate. Today, Almah's
Speaker 1: debt has more than doubled. She and her husband have
Speaker 1: filed for bankruptcy. It's quite um disheartening, troubling, UH to
Speaker 1: be in the situation like this. I just don't understand
Speaker 1: why the government allows this to happen. For a thirty
Speaker 1: tho dollar loan to become a seventy tho dollar loan.
Speaker 1: I don't come from family with a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and I wanted a further my life in to provide
Speaker 1: from my family a better future. So I felt like
Speaker 1: the need to have to do it. At the time,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't realize it was gonna get to
Speaker 1: this monster that it's at now. Both Frank and Alma
Speaker 1: are among the more than forty million federal student loan
Speaker 1: holders were scheduled to begin making monthly payments again on
Speaker 1: October one, once COVID nineteen debt relief measures expire. Right now,
Speaker 1: obviously with COVID nineteen, it's not accruing anything, and I
Speaker 1: don't have to pay right now, but it's soon going
Speaker 1: to start again, and with me not working, I don't
Speaker 1: know how that's gonna be feasible. And unfortunately this is
Speaker 1: not covered by bankruptcy. I would like to thank that
Speaker 1: loan forgiveness what happened. I'm very pessimistic that that will happen.
Speaker 1: You know, if you can't do a way of student loans,
Speaker 1: do away with the entrance on those student loans, because
Speaker 1: that's what really runs that cost uff and burden people.
Speaker 1: My hopes for this issue for myself is for me
Speaker 1: to be debt free from it completely. I know President
Speaker 1: Biden talked about releasing us from all debt, so if
Speaker 1: he's not gonna give us the blessing of canceling this
Speaker 1: student loan debt, I would hope and pray that at
Speaker 1: least he changes the laws so that it could be
Speaker 1: included into a bankruptcy. If education is important as everyone
Speaker 1: make it out to be, in which I agree with,
Speaker 1: that should be a better way. The wealthy not our issue. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the average person don't have that luxury. Quite honestly,
Speaker 1: I'd like for my son to go on and get
Speaker 1: his master's, but on that's going to have to be
Speaker 1: on his dime. I'm joined now by one of the
Speaker 1: people who helped uncover this story for bloom Bag, senior
Speaker 1: editor for the Real Economy team and one of our
Speaker 1: best data journalists, Alex Tanzi. Alex, thanks for being on
Speaker 1: Stephanomics U. I should start by asking you how you
Speaker 1: came across this story. It wasn't something that I had
Speaker 1: heard about, this idea of of really much older people
Speaker 1: laden with student debt. So for a number of years now,
Speaker 1: student that's becoming a more prominent problem in the US.
Speaker 1: It's up to one point seven trillion, so we've really
Speaker 1: in about that several times. And in the past years
Speaker 1: before there was forbearents for the pandemic delinquencies on student
Speaker 1: that was the highest of any consumer debt. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people are going into a lot of debt.
Speaker 1: The government wasn't getting any of this money back. So
Speaker 1: it's been an issue we've been kind of focused on,
Speaker 1: and lately we've taken a deeper look at how different
Speaker 1: parts of the population have different types of debt and
Speaker 1: the loan program for parents wanting to help their kids
Speaker 1: with the student debt um that seems to be causing
Speaker 1: particular issues. So what are the problems there? Why are
Speaker 1: people running into difficulties. One of the issue there is
Speaker 1: that type of debt. That portion of student loans is
Speaker 1: rising much more rapidly than any other portion. So a
Speaker 1: lot of parents are trying to do the best thing
Speaker 1: for their kid and incurring a lot of debt to
Speaker 1: send them to college. And the debt is not cheap.
Speaker 1: It comes with a four percent more than a four
Speaker 1: percent origination fee, So right off the top, you're paying
Speaker 1: four percent more than everyone else. And the interest rates
Speaker 1: are over seven that's extraordinary. There's a huge gap between
Speaker 1: the student loan interest rate and say the tenure. The
Speaker 1: US tenure it wu the last dozen years, it's average
Speaker 1: more than four d basis points. Well, that's four percentage
Speaker 1: points more expensive. And what is I mean? I think
Speaker 1: we obviously have seen in as Over the last few
Speaker 1: years in the US, it's been a very prominent feature
Speaker 1: student debt, not so much the parent debt, but the
Speaker 1: certainly student debt. And there's lots of proposals for helping
Speaker 1: people with it, but what's the politics of of helping
Speaker 1: older people with this kind of debt. So in the
Speaker 1: last election, for the first time it became a campaign issue.
Speaker 1: UM it rose to that level of prominence overall student
Speaker 1: that not necessarily the parent portion, but it became, you know,
Speaker 1: campaign issues, So a lot of different politicians were running
Speaker 1: on UM forgiving everything. Biden's kind of been opposed to that.
Speaker 1: So far, he hasn't really staked his ground, but he
Speaker 1: said he was willing to do a smaller portion of forgiveness.
Speaker 1: But for parents in particular. You have a lot of
Speaker 1: people now at the age when they should be saving
Speaker 1: for retirement, at the age when they are retired, and
Speaker 1: there's still paying student lens. So you have some people
Speaker 1: collect in Social Security retirement income and paying student loans,
Speaker 1: which UM is not a good scenario, and it's not
Speaker 1: a it's not a straight Democrat Republican split, is it.
Speaker 1: People feel differently on different sides of the are now
Speaker 1: you know, everything is political these days in Washington. But
Speaker 1: under Trump, the fellow appointed to be in charge of
Speaker 1: student loans, he resigned and he said the whole system
Speaker 1: can't be fixed, and he recommended a universal, um, a
Speaker 1: universal for parents. Um, you know, have the government pay
Speaker 1: off all these debts. He simply said, the system is
Speaker 1: broken and there's no good solution to fix it, and
Speaker 1: the country as a whole is better off just starting
Speaker 1: from scratch. And it was interesting because I think that
Speaker 1: guy he actually and he blamed the schools for the
Speaker 1: universities for putting students in this in this problem. There's
Speaker 1: a massive misalignment and incentives, so parents and students can
Speaker 1: take out this money very easily. There's no background check
Speaker 1: of any type. Um, it's much more difficult to get
Speaker 1: a five thousand dollar small business loan than say a
Speaker 1: fifty dollar loan to go to college. At the same time,
Speaker 1: schools have no incentive, they have no skin in the game,
Speaker 1: so they have no incentive to keep costs down, and
Speaker 1: you know, they're happy to have more and more kids
Speaker 1: paying a lot of fees. The government, you know, gives
Speaker 1: this money out pretty easily, probably a lot easier than
Speaker 1: they should, Um, there's no type of distinction on the
Speaker 1: type of college you're going to, the type of major
Speaker 1: you're studying. Everyone's paying the same rate, and they do
Speaker 1: that for you know, particular reasons. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: if there was a different incentive, and you know, if
Speaker 1: you're going to a very good school, your grades are
Speaker 1: it and you're studying, say a field that's in high demand,
Speaker 1: you know, and on the in the private market, you
Speaker 1: would probably pay less and interest Um, you know, with
Speaker 1: the government running things, everyone is paying the same and
Speaker 1: it's creating a misalignment of incentives. And I guess one,
Speaker 1: I mean, one reason why it's probably easy to get
Speaker 1: is it's much much harder to write off. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you that the normal bankruptcy rules don't let you
Speaker 1: write it off the way you would be able to
Speaker 1: write off other kinds of consumer debt or indeed, mortgage
Speaker 1: debt that you could just walk away from. In the US,
Speaker 1: it's extremely difficult to get it written off. Lately, there
Speaker 1: have been some, you know, very few cases where people
Speaker 1: have been able to get the debt reduced, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, you know, you're stuck with it, and
Speaker 1: you know, people are stuck with it so last year
Speaker 1: that the Partmit of Education was able to claw back
Speaker 1: five billion dollars from people's social security incomes or tax
Speaker 1: refunds or other parts of um, you know, government income
Speaker 1: when someone wasn't paying their student learned that that's an
Speaker 1: incredible figure. I mean, I guess that the human, the
Speaker 1: human aspect of this is and I remember learning this
Speaker 1: many years ago, that some of the different repayment rates
Speaker 1: relate to how people feel about the debt and if
Speaker 1: you people will try very hard to hold onto their
Speaker 1: homes and to carry on paying their mortgages. If you
Speaker 1: took it, if you did a degree and actually it
Speaker 1: didn't help you much and you didn't get a great
Speaker 1: job out of it, you don't have the same kind
Speaker 1: of association. You don't feel the same kind of determination
Speaker 1: of pride in in paying it back if it hasn't
Speaker 1: worked out so well. So it's I think there's an
Speaker 1: element of of psychology around this. But in the UK
Speaker 1: you can write it's written off after thirty years student debt.
Speaker 1: I wonder whether do you think that might make sense
Speaker 1: in the US too. I think it would definitely makes sense,
Speaker 1: especially for older people or people that become disabled. One
Speaker 1: issue is people's incomes and their lives are not always
Speaker 1: a straight line. People get divorced, people have health problems,
Speaker 1: people have a death in the family, so their incomes fluctuate.
Speaker 1: They lose their jobs, so it's difficult to always pay
Speaker 1: the same amount every month with student debt, and for
Speaker 1: some people they are more than two hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: so it can be quite a significant amount every month
Speaker 1: that has to go out. There's also the St. Louis
Speaker 1: FED has done some studies on the outcomes for college graduates,
Speaker 1: and for many that don't necessarily go to the best
Speaker 1: school and don't necessarily have the best grades, there's not
Speaker 1: much benefit to go to college. It's not much better
Speaker 1: than a high school degree. So there is um. There is,
Speaker 1: Like you're saying, there's a lot of problems with people
Speaker 1: feeling good about getting this that if they can't find
Speaker 1: a job that helps them pay for it, there's a
Speaker 1: massive investment. Is not very high. Turn well, Alex Tansy,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for talking us through it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. In case you hadn't noticed, inflation
Speaker 1: is back. The headline rate of inflation in the US
Speaker 1: hit five percent last month. That's the highest since two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. We've talked before on this podcast about
Speaker 1: rising commodity prices and the record cost of shipping. Now
Speaker 1: it's diapers on nappiece and restaurant meals. Diaper banks have
Speaker 1: seen a jump in demand in many US states as
Speaker 1: low income families deal with the consequences of price hikes
Speaker 1: by the two companies which dominate the U S diaper market,
Speaker 1: PNG and Kimberly Clark. And now you can finally go
Speaker 1: to your local restaurant, you're probably finding that prices have
Speaker 1: gone up there as well. US Economy reporter Olivia Rockman
Speaker 1: has more on that last story. Olivia, tell me why
Speaker 1: restaurant chains are feeling the strain and needing to hike prices.
Speaker 1: And one side, they're getting a lot of pressure from commodities,
Speaker 1: so that could be chicken, beef, even shipping costs for
Speaker 1: their products. Chicken, for example, is at a decades high
Speaker 1: in terms of price increases. And on the other hand,
Speaker 1: they're being hit with with wage increases that they're having
Speaker 1: to take in order to attract workers. Because in the
Speaker 1: US we've had a lot of generous unemployment benefits, which
Speaker 1: is not motivating many people to return to the workforce,
Speaker 1: and so it's really on every end of their cost
Speaker 1: cycle that they're facing these pressures and then in turn
Speaker 1: having to raise prices. Yeah, and I think it's always
Speaker 1: worth remembering when people talk about the fear of inflation.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's lots of things to worry about inflation,
Speaker 1: and often it does affect poor people the most because
Speaker 1: they haven't necessarily got wage increases rising in line with inflation.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you know, some of this
Speaker 1: inflation is about increasing people's incomes, people getting paid more
Speaker 1: um to work in restaurants and other places. And what
Speaker 1: companies are we seeing increased prices and what what kind
Speaker 1: of peace we've seen. The first big company that we
Speaker 1: saw do this was Chippotle, Mexican restaurant chain here in
Speaker 1: the US, and they had taken a wage increase a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago and then shortly after announced that
Speaker 1: they were raising their prices about four percent. We saw
Speaker 1: the same with Cracker Barrel and other restaurant chain. McDonald's
Speaker 1: has talked about needing to take price increases soon because
Speaker 1: of wage increases, and we're hearing it from small businesses too.
Speaker 1: And they do come up with a few sneaky ways
Speaker 1: of hiding this from us. You don't you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: know that the price has gone up. Yes, so companies
Speaker 1: in their earnings cause will say they're looking at their
Speaker 1: pricing strategy, or they're going to take pricing, or they're
Speaker 1: looking at their price calculation, and they won't overtly say
Speaker 1: that they're increasing prices. And so it is sort of
Speaker 1: a game that they're playing between their investors and their customers.
Speaker 1: But if you're a customer, you're gonna notice. I mean
Speaker 1: they also trying to shrink the pulsian sizes or do
Speaker 1: something I know that often happens with consumer products. You
Speaker 1: find that your favorite chocolate bar is actually more than
Speaker 1: it was a few years ago. Yeah, we heard from
Speaker 1: Wingstop at Chicken Company that they're starting to use every
Speaker 1: part of the chicken to make their products rather than
Speaker 1: just the legs are just the breast that they used
Speaker 1: to use. So there are some creative cost manipulations going
Speaker 1: on as well. I'm surprised that they wanted to publicize that.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make me want to jump in, but maybe
Speaker 1: that's it's good. It's good environmental grounds. You should use
Speaker 1: every last drop. Thanks very much, Olivia. That's it for
Speaker 1: Stephonomics this week. I'll be back next week with a
Speaker 1: special episode on the future of the global economy, featuring
Speaker 1: a discussion with former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and
Speaker 1: big name investor Ray Dalio. So tune in for that
Speaker 1: and follow as Economics on Twitter to hear more economic
Speaker 1: news and analysis from Bloomberg. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrick Soon. The report from China was written and
Speaker 1: reported by Charlie jou, Lyn Ju and Daniel Away, with
Speaker 1: special thanks to tong Jiang Dong, Doug Huang, Madison Baglia,
Speaker 1: Alex Tanzi, and Olivia Rockman. Mike Sasso is the executive
Speaker 1: producer of Stephanomics and the head of Bloomberg Podcast is
Speaker 1: Francesco Lea.